Recent emphasis on health and physical fitness has resulted in a demand for improved exercise equipment for home and office use. Most known exercise equipment has been designed for gymnasium use where a large quantity of space is generally available, and consequently elaborate mechanisms for separately exercising each limb of the human body have been developed. There include wall mounted systems consisting of cables, springs, pulleys and weights for exercising the arms, while elaborate bicycle type mechanisms have been developed to build leg muscles. From these a user can move on to special inclined ramps and similar devices for abdominal muscle building.
The home exercise practitioner, who has neither the space nor the capital investment necessary to accommodate complex and bulky gymnasium equipment, generally must make do with small, simple spring devices for separately exercising the arms, hands and legs. More commonly, those exercising at home operate without the benefit of any equipment and engage in arm and leg exercises performed from a prone position. Many of these exercises utilize the forces supplied by gravity as a muscle building factor.
There is a tremendous need for home exercise equipment which is simple compact and inexpensive, and which is designed so that a single unit will effectively exercise all body appendages as well as the abdomen and back.